To mark the third UN commissioned International Holocaust Remembrance
Day, Jan 27th 2009, I am sending you our project newsletter
highlighting the expanded scope and global activities of the Shoah
Victims' Names Recovery Project. We hope you will enjoy the new look
and feel of our newsletter incorporating interactive links to online
resources and media to help you promote this vital and historic
project.

We have created a new
Q&A section to
address frequently asked questions regarding the submission of Pages
of Testimony, including queries on adding photographs, duplicate
submissions, and corrections/amendments to the Central Database of
Shoah Victims' Names. You can access the Q&A to enhance your
knowledge of the workings of the Central Database of Shoah Victims'
Names as well as to better assist others interested in submitting
Pages of Testimony. Please send additional questions you may have and
we will post the answers on our website.

You are invited to view a new trilogy of
documentary films produced by Boris Maftsir, director of the Shoah
Victims' Names Recovery Project in the Occupied Territories of the
Former Soviet Union. These short movies depict the pain of Shoah
remembrance through the stories of those who miraculously survived
impending death.

The films aim to convey the personal and
collective importance of commemorating the names of Shoah victims. To
order copies of the films on DVD please contact:

The Central Database of Shoah Victims'
Names continues to help shed light on the fate of family lost during
the Shoah years, with families reuniting as a result of discovering
Pages of Testimony submitted by relatives they never knew existed.
Nancy Diamond, of Washington, D.C. recently discovered an entire
branch of surviving family members here in Israel following exhaustive
genealogical research based on information available in the Central
Database of Shoah Victims' Names.

Read an article about Bar/bat mitzvah
twinning projects, an increasingly popular way in which Jewish
children and their families are strengthening their identification
with the Jewish people by forging bonds with individual children
killed in the Holocaust. For more information about how to plan a
twinning bar or bat mitzvah please contact:names.proj@yadvashem.org.il

Visit the new online exhibit, which portrays Yad Vashem’s duty to
preserve the memory of the Holocaust, through the use of the objects
in the Artifacts Collection along with their poignant stories. The use
of a personal story with a tangible, authentic artifact as its focus,
with the addition of documents, photographs and testimonies, enables
the visitors to understand fragments of the experiences of the
survivors.